Three Beautiful Things 07/13/18: Christy's Excellent Progress, The Vacuum Cleaner Works!, Touring Kellogg with Longtime Friends

1.  I am happy to report that Christy continues to make steady progress as she heals from her knee replacement surgery. This morning at 8 a.m., she drove up to our house, picked up the Deke, and the two of them joined Carol for coffee at the Bean. Christy drove uptown for an appointment. She had slept through the night without pain -- she has discovered the right timing for when to take her pain medicine (which I thought she was off of -- but, she's still taking some before bed at night) and the pain relief is helping her get much needed healing sleep. Today, Christy went out into her gardens and took pictures -- if you are her Facebook friend, you can see the pictures -- and just had a solid day of rest, activity, and healing. She's very grateful for how helpful the ice therapy machine has turned out to be and has learned that she does best with her leg elevated, so that having Mom's medical chair in her possession is a great help.

2. So, earlier in the week, I bought this light weight Shark vacuum cleaner and hoped it would be the right machine for vacuuming our hardwood floors and area rugs. Today, I found out it was a great purchase. By alternating between different attachments, I vacuumed the floor, four area rugs, the ridges of the baseboards in different rooms, and got dog hair off the love seat, chair, and ottoman. I also was able to make the vacuum cleaner really short and this made vacuuming the steps going upstairs very easy. The only downside of this machine? Like every vacuum cleaner ever invented, this one drives Maggie and Charly crazy. I have to have the Deke take the dogs in the basement so that I can vacuum without having them scream bark, panic, and attack the vacuum cleaner. With the dogs in the basement, vacuuming the house with our new machine was a very pleasant experience.

3. Our friends Vickie and Alan arrived mid-afternoon from West Seattle and we sat around the Beer Club table in the kitchen and ate snacks, drank cold beverages, and launched into some solid yakkin'. We went to the Hill St. Depot for an enjoyable dinner and capped off our evening out in the beer garden area at Radio Brewing. It was fun starting to show Vickie and Alan around Kellogg a bit. Upon returning home, I hit the wall -- I'd been up since 5:30 -- and retired to bed and I'm not sure how long the Deke and Vickie and Alan stayed up.